When will this shit end?

[Paul ™]

2 hours ago, steviewevie said:

has her head blown up yet?

It's ok, she will grow another one before long..

[Mimo]

39 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

Am I right in thinking (by all means correct me if i'm wrong) that once the vulnerable are vaccinated the R rate becomes somewhat insignificant as those most at risk can't actually get seriously ill / die?

Loads of healthy and extremely low risk people giving it to each other whereby symptoms are minor / not there at all is actually okay?

I'm really curious to read a public health expert view on this. Whilst death rates drop right off under 50 it can still make people really ill (and it will still kill some). Long covid is definitely a problem, they reckon 1 in 20 will still have symptoms over a month after infection and there are previously healthy young people who are still not right now after catching it back in March. It definitely shouldn't be taken lightly, don't forget that people with long covid can't do strenuous things such as 5 day festivals. I certainly don't want it.

I'd guess from what Tories have been saying that once enough over 60s have been vaccinated day to day restrictions will be lifted and we'll move into a phase of 'personal responsibility' whilst the rest of us gradually get jabbed. Question is does that mean large events are allowed to proceed? I'm not sure.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Mimo

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, st dan said:

Out of interest, what is your vision of lower level social distancing? What/how do you envisage things being different from what is in place now?
And if things get too relaxed, is there even much point in continuing with them at all if they aren’t going to have much impact? 

Keep 1m away from people that you don't know when on the street / in shops
Wear masks on public transport
Tables set up in pubs and restaurants so there's 1m spacing between different groups (not different households) and people have their backs to each other
Restaurants and pubs sanitize all tables between uses, hand sanitization stations remain
Gigs are seated with specific seats, not standing
Don't touch strangers (this one should never go away!)

[efcfanwirral]

3 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Your personal odds of dying when you've not been vaccinated don't change - just overall if you're younger those odds were lower anyway. But plenty of younger people were not going out in summer or tier 1/2. Not all of that was concern over who they would transmit to. The government had to introduce half price meals to encourage people to go out again.

In 2001 it was an incredibly small risk of dying in a terror attack on a plane, yet flight sales plummeted after 9/11.

Secondly, it's not just risk, but risk versus reward. A lot of people have discovered they don't need the pub anymore. They can socialise in other ways, and once they're allowed to have friends around again, they might do that instead. It's safer and the pub isn't that much better than the lounge. In some ways it's worse. The risk is low, but what's the incentive to take it?

After seeing the study that reckoned some people thought 7% of the population died from the virus I wonder if a lot of that is people not really reading beyond terrifying headlines about deaths? And that when the death figures do go down they'll be influenced by that? 

[JoeyT]

1 minute ago, DeanoL said:

Your personal odds of dying when you've not been vaccinated don't change - just overall if you're younger those odds were lower anyway. But plenty of younger people were not going out in summer or tier 1/2. Not all of that was concern over who they would transmit to. The government had to introduce half price meals to encourage people to go out again.

In 2001 it was an incredibly small risk of dying in a terror attack on a plane, yet flight sales plummeted after 9/11.

Secondly, it's not just risk, but risk versus reward. A lot of people have discovered they don't need the pub anymore. They can socialise in other ways, and once they're allowed to have friends around again, they might do that instead. It's safer and the pub isn't that much better than the lounge. In some ways it's worse. The risk is low, but what's the incentive to take it?

I don't think you can judge the behaviour patterns of younger people going by summer 2020. That's just bonkers. There was no atmosphere in pubs, they weren't even playing loud music let alone having local bands on and it was pretty much sit at your table like a naughty school kid was it not?

So there were reasons (all virus related) people were doing things in a different way.

 

[Ozanne]

3 minutes ago, st dan said:

Out of interest, what is your vision of lower level social distancing? What/how do you envisage things being different from what is in place now?
And if things get too relaxed, is there even much point in continuing with them at all if they aren’t going to have much impact? 

I would think we’d see a gradual relaxing depending on cases in certain regions and have a couple of months or so where restrictions were like the summer we’ve just had. Then if that shows no negative impact in the figures then relax even further until we are nearly back at normal levels. Possibly with certain things like indoors needing masks for a little bit just in case and large events needed testing of attendees. This will likely start from Easter. I think it’s wise to go slowly just in case and in a way that will boost confidence in the public instead of rushing back into it. 
 

We had lower forms of restrictions in the summer, people kept to them and cases remained fairly low. So I can see us mirroring those for a little bit. It’s important to remember that those comments from the CSO say we’ll ‘start’ to see things get back to normal from April, doesn’t necessarily mean they will fully be back to normal at that point.  

[efcfanwirral]

2 minutes ago, Mimo said:

I'm really curious to read a public health expert view on this. Whilst death rates drop right off under 50 it can still make people really ill (and it will still kill some). Long covid is definitely a problem, they reckon 1 in 20 will still have symptoms over a month after infection and there are previously healthy young people who are still not right now after catching it back in March. It definitely shouldn't be taken lightly, don't forget that people with long covid can't do strenuous things such as 5 day festivals. I certainly don't want it.

I'd guess from what Tories have been saying that once enough over 60s have been vaccinated day to day restrictions will be lifted and we'll move into a phase of 'personal responsibility' whilst the rest of us gradually get jabbed. Question is does that mean large events are allowed to proceed? I'm not sure.

To be fair people catch viruses and illnesses often that leads to symptoms like 'long covid', its just not plastered all over the news like this. If we keep things shut down / mandate vaccines over that then there are many other diseases that we should be a lot stricter on because we've lived with these types of risks all our lives. 

[DeanoL]

1 minute ago, efcfanwirral said:

After seeing the study that reckoned some people thought 7% of the population died from the virus I wonder if a lot of that is people not really reading beyond terrifying headlines about deaths? And that when the death figures do go down they'll be influenced by that? 

Possibly.

I think before people make huge assumptions about how people will look at the figures and be comfortable in seeing that the personal risk level is pretty low they should account for the huge numbers of people that have said they don't want the vaccine, or are undecided until some others have it first at least.

These sort of people who would rather go with what they reckon than any scientific evidence are not just on the "COVID is all a conspiracy anyway" end of things. There's surely at least equal numbers that won't believe it's safe out just because the government say "it's safe out now" on April 1st.

[Fuzzy Afro]

One form of social distancing that will probably never go away is the rule that if you test positive for covid-19 you must stay at home for a period. I think Test & Trace is here to stay. 
 

They probably will roll back close contact isolation though. Something like 1-in-70 people who are asked to isolate by T&T go on to test positive, so the other 69 are excluded from society for two weeks for no reason. 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Fuzzy Afro

[zahidf]

They'll keep mask wearing and hand sanitiser stations for longer. But i very much doubt they'll keep distancing longer than they have to and it will be the first thing to go

 

 

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

To be fair people catch viruses and illnesses often that leads to symptoms like 'long covid', its just not plastered all over the news like this. If we keep things shut down / mandate vaccines over that then there are many other diseases that we should be a lot stricter on because we've lived with these types of risks all our lives. 

The vast majority of those risks are also reduced or eliminated through social distancing though. This is part of the problem. People will have spent a year making a lifestyle change that reduced their risk of ill health and death. Not by design - the design was just stopping the NHS being overwhelmed. But the reality is they've made themselves safer. (In terms of mental health, maybe not, but that's less visible and obvious).

People will start making serious assessments about what they want to do, what feels safe and what doesn't. We'll never get back entirely to normal - it seems accepted that home-working some of the time in office jobs will be the new normal - but everyone is okay with that because at the moment people seem to like it.

We will see similar impacts in demands for places like pubs and restaurants, both short and long term.

[Mellotr0n]

12 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

To be fair people catch viruses and illnesses often that leads to symptoms like 'long covid', its just not plastered all over the news like this. If we keep things shut down / mandate vaccines over that then there are many other diseases that we should be a lot stricter on because we've lived with these types of risks all our lives. 

This. Viral infections can often be a bugger to shift/have a long tail - COVID appears to be very similar to most viral infections in this regard.

[steviewevie]

6 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

One form of social distancing that will probably never go away is the rule that if you test positive for covid-19 you must stay at home for a period. I think Test & Trace is here to stay. 

they need to sort out sick pay then...

[Ozanne]

8 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Possibly.

I think before people make huge assumptions about how people will look at the figures and be comfortable in seeing that the personal risk level is pretty low they should account for the huge numbers of people that have said they don't want the vaccine, or are undecided until some others have it first at least.

These sort of people who would rather go with what they reckon than any scientific evidence are not just on the "COVID is all a conspiracy anyway" end of things. There's surely at least equal numbers that won't believe it's safe out just because the government say "it's safe out now" on April 1st.

That’s very true. We all want these restrictions to go but to think that come April the Gov are going to relax all restrictions is slightly naive and if people have that mentality they’ll be disappointed unfortunately. I think it’s wise to expect a gradual relaxation as we go through the Spring. 

[efcfanwirral]

11 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The vast majority of those risks are also reduced or eliminated through social distancing though. This is part of the problem. People will have spent a year making a lifestyle change that reduced their risk of ill health and death. Not by design - the design was just stopping the NHS being overwhelmed. But the reality is they've made themselves safer. (In terms of mental health, maybe not, but that's less visible and obvious).

People will start making serious assessments about what they want to do, what feels safe and what doesn't. We'll never get back entirely to normal - it seems accepted that home-working some of the time in office jobs will be the new normal - but everyone is okay with that because at the moment people seem to like it.

We will see similar impacts in demands for places like pubs and restaurants, both short and long term.

This is true- that's where the market takes over - we should be supporting businesses now when they actually can't open but when people decide they don't want to go out/don't need to spend the money then businesses will have to fail naturally. It becomes consumer choice then as it should be, with innovation saving those businesses with good ideas. 

[Copperface]

42 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

That’s very true. We all want these restrictions to go but to think that come April the Gov are going to relax all restrictions is slightly naive and if people have that mentality they’ll be disappointed unfortunately. I think it’s wise to expect a gradual relaxation as we go through the Spring. 

Face masks could still be needed late into next year despite the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, the UK government's chief scientific adviser has said.

"It's going to take quite a long time to make sure everybody in the at-risk groups - and all of the groups that are difficult to reach - get vaccinated as appropriate," he told Sky News.

He said it could take a month or longer before the vaccine gives full immunity.

"This is incredibly important and it is important that we all stick to the rules in the meantime. The rules are what's keeping the virus down now - we need to keep the virus down while we allow the vaccine programme to roll out," he said.

"It may be that next winter, even with vaccination, we need measures like masks in place - we don't know yet how good all the vaccines are going to be at preventing the transmission of the virus."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55227103?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5fcf483e6f142d02bee3c167%26Face masks 'may still be needed in late 2021'%262020-12-08T10%3A48%3A29.246Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:34f014cc-82f1-4387-8d61-49aa7a4a3089&pinned_post_asset_id=5fcf483e6f142d02bee3c167&pinned_post_type=share

[mattiloy]

54 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Your personal odds of dying when you've not been vaccinated don't change - just overall if you're younger those odds were lower anyway.

Your personal odds of dying assuming infection*.
 

Since the overall chance of death is a function of both the odds of you catching it and the odds your body responds in a way which leads to your death - the overall chance of death is of course reduced as R comes down thanks to some extant immunity in the population so the odds of catching it drop accordingly. They phased the TB vaccination out in my school year so I don’t have the TB vaccine because the population is sufficiently vaccinated to mean that the chances of me actually catching it are miniscule.

Furthermore I’d contest that actually your odds of dying assuming you become infected are reduced because there would be less strain on health services, contact tracing should be easier and more effective, and there is less of a chance you are exposed to a ’high viral load’ - for example a higher chance you are sat in the midst of just one infectious person rather than three people all shedding coronavirus around you on a bus.

[Mimo]

42 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

We'll never get back entirely to normal

It depends on how you define normal really. We won't get back to life exactly as it was in 2019, but then life in 2019 was different to life in 2009, and even more so life in 1999 etc and so on. Things are constantly changing, it's just that when something big like this happens everything changes much more rapidly and it's a shock. Come 2029 I don't think too many will people be looking back wistfully at 2019.

IMO normal is more about your state of mind and it's different for everyone dependant on their circumstance. For example I think for most people here once we've been back to the festival life will be feeling much more normal again.

[Ozanne]

10 minutes ago, Copperface said:

Face masks could still be needed late into next year despite the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, the UK government's chief scientific adviser has said.

"It's going to take quite a long time to make sure everybody in the at-risk groups - and all of the groups that are difficult to reach - get vaccinated as appropriate," he told Sky News.

He said it could take a month or longer before the vaccine gives full immunity.

"This is incredibly important and it is important that we all stick to the rules in the meantime. The rules are what's keeping the virus down now - we need to keep the virus down while we allow the vaccine programme to roll out," he said.

"It may be that next winter, even with vaccination, we need measures like masks in place - we don't know yet how good all the vaccines are going to be at preventing the transmission of the virus."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55227103?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5fcf483e6f142d02bee3c167%26Face masks 'may still be needed in late 2021'%262020-12-08T10%3A48%3A29.246Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:34f014cc-82f1-4387-8d61-49aa7a4a3089&pinned_post_asset_id=5fcf483e6f142d02bee3c167&pinned_post_type=share

Those are very good points and is a balanced message to the public of partly what to expect. Masks especially are no extra effort and make the world of difference so if we need to keep wearing them in certain places for a bit then I think that’s a fair trade off. 

[DeanoL]

12 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Your personal odds of dying assuming infection*.
 

Since the overall chance of death is a function of both the odds of you catching it and the odds your body responds in a way which leads to your death - the overall chance of death is of course reduced as R comes down thanks to some extant immunity in the population so the odds of catching it drop accordingly.

That's a good point, but only *if* the vaccine prevents transmission. That's not yet been scientifically proven.

And even if it does, that brings the R number down a bit, but then opening things back up increases it again surely, so they balance out to a degree.

If it turns out the vaccine doesn't actually prevent transmission, or has only a minor impact on it, then the R rate will actually go up hugely when the restrictions are lifted.

[parsonjack]

2 minutes ago, Mimo said:

It depends on how you define normal really. We won't get back to life exactly as it was in 2019, but then life in 2019 was different to life in 2009, and even more so life in 1999 etc and so on. Things are constantly changing, it's just that when something big like this happens everything changes much more rapidly and it's a shock. Come 2029 I don't think too many will people be looking back wistfully at 2019.

IMO normal is more about your state of mind and it's different for everyone dependant on their circumstance. For example I think for most people here once we've been back to the festival life will be feeling much more normal again.

Yes very succinctly put.  My 'normal' will be meeting friends for lunch without needing to consider how many of us and whether we can sit indoors for it around a table, and being able to book a holiday and sit by a pool without needing to consider the risk and whether we'll need to quarantine when we get home etc.

[Copperface]

6 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Those are very good points and is a balanced message to the public of partly what to expect. Masks especially are no extra effort and make the world of difference so if we need to keep wearing them in certain places for a bit then I think that’s a fair trade off. 

The relevant point for me was the linkage of face covering restrictions to completing vaccination of the at risk group which might indicate a somewhat more elastic timescale than Spring.

 

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

5 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

That's a good point, but only *if* the vaccine prevents transmission. That's not yet been scientifically proven.

And even if it does, that brings the R number down a bit, but then opening things back up increases it again surely, so they balance out to a degree.

If it turns out the vaccine doesn't actually prevent transmission, or has only a minor impact on it, then the R rate will actually go up hugely when the restrictions are lifted.

If the vaccine doesn't stop transmission then limiting people's ability to travel or attendance of events because they haven't had the vaccine is pointless and those who want to protect themselves should take it and those who are happy to role the dice due to age etc.. etc.. should still be allowed to go about their business. 

[balthazarstarbuck]

5 minutes ago, Copperface said:

The relevant point for me was the linkage of face covering restrictions to completing vaccination of the at risk group which might indicate a somewhat more elastic timescale than Spring.

 

Or maybe we’ll just be advised to wear masks on public transport etc as a matter of course like in East Asia when they don’t have an epidemic on, it’s more precautionary.

[The Nal]

Get that 90 year old woman down the farm now with a group of people with Covid. Stick a load of pills in her, deprive her of a proper nights kip for 5 nights and and lets see how she is on Monday.